The state of the art includes bending machines for profiles, such as round pieces used for reinforcement purposes or similar, single or in bundles, wherein the shearing means, usually consisting of a shears arranged downstream of the drawing assembly and upstream of the bending means, are able to shear said profiles.
When they are working bars pre-sheared to size, such bending machines have problems with regard to the discharge of possible working off-cuts, deriving from the difference between the length of the bar and the linear development of the stirrup formed.
To be more exact, once the profile has been shaped so as to form a reinforcement stirrup, a terminal segment of the bar may be in excess with respect to the stirrup obtained, and may remain at least partly gripped on the drawing assembly after shearing has been accomplished.
This sheared segment, or off-cut, then has to be discharged from the machine and in particular from the drawing means in order to start a new production cycle.
To discharge the off-cut, one conventional solution provides to include, downstream of the drawing assembly, at least a pair of ejector rollers; these rollers are able to intervene after shearing, so that the off-cut is expelled from the machine, thus freeing the drawing assembly.
With this solution however, there is the risk that the discharged off-cut might interfere with the bending means, arranged immediately downstream of the shears, or with other operating assemblies which can be present on the bending machine, compromising the correct functioning thereof. Moreover, this conventional solution does not guarantee sufficient safety for the machine operator, since the off-cuts thus discharged can hit him.
The present Applicant has devised and embodied this invention to overcome this shortcoming of the state of the art, and to obtain further advantages.